Disappearing honeybees

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A honeybee visits a flower at the Mughal Gardens at the Presidential Palace in New Delhi, India, on Feb. 12. The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees' pollen and hives laden with pesticides. Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat. Gurinder Osan/AP

A cluster of honeybees are active in their hives in Brooklyn, NY in May 2009. Beekeeping was previously illegal in the city, but on March 16, the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene voted to lift the decade-old ban. Mary Knox Merrill/Staff/FILE

Scavenger bees look for nourishment at a dead hive at a bee farm east of Merced, Calif., on March 22. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Honey drips from a bee as a honeycomb is lifted out of a beehive at the village of Ein Yahav in southern Israel in September 2008. Dan Balilty/AP

Live honeybees are silhouetted as they move around a display at the Pennsylvania Farm Show and Expo Center in Harrisburg, Pa., on Jan. 14. A survey of beekeepers published in the January issue of the Journal of Apicultural Research finds the percentage of operations reporting having lost colonies with colony collapse disorder symptoms decreased to 26 percent last winter, compared to 38 percent the previous season and 36 percent the season before that. Carolyn Kaster/AP

Scavenger bees hover around a dead hive at a bee farm near Merced, Calif., on March 22. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Beekeepers look over a honeybee hive on the roof of a home in the Upper West Side of New York City in May 2009. Beekeeping in the city, once was an illegal activity punishable by a $2,000 fine, was legalized in March. Mary Knox Merrill/Staff/FILE

Zac Browning, owner of Browning's Honey Co. Inc. shows a queen bee at a bee farm near Merced, Calif., on March 22. Browning keeps his hives in Idaho Falls, Idaho, through the winter and brings them to California each year for the almond crop pollination. Browning said so many of his bees died in recent months in Idaho but weren't discovered dead until they arrived in California that he resorted to calling friends and colleagues on the East Coast and begged them to replenish his stocks so he could meet growers' demands in California. Marco Jose Sanchez/AP

A beekeeper holds cluster of honeybees which are active on a frame taken from inside their hive at a home in Brooklyn, NY, in May 2009. Mary Knox Merrill/Staff/FILE

Children watch honeybees in a display at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg, Pa., on Jan. 14. Carolyn Kaster/AP

Workers clear honey from dead bee hives at a bee farm near Merced, Calif., on March 22. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

A bee pollinates a blossom on a purple-leaf plum tree on March 12 in Las Cruces, NM. Shari Vialpando/Las Cruces Sun-News/AP

Farm Manager David Vigil of East New York Farms checks on the honeybee hives in Brooklyn, NY, on March 16, the day New York City's health board voted to overturn a longtime ban on beekeeping within city limits. Mary Altaffer/AP

Honeybees swarm a honeycomb at Al Taryyaq farm in Jordan, on Feb. 8. Jordan has introduced a modern laboratory to help protect the bee population after an outbreak in 2008 that decimated nearly half of the region’s bee hives, the nation's Bee Research Unit Director Nizar Haddad said. Ali Jarekji/Reuters